But let it be noted that the man did fess up, even if he didn't have much choice about it. He didn't try to brazen it out ("I never had sexual relations with that woman") or play word games, let alone testify falsely under oath. He looked straight into the cameras as he apologized. ("I have disappointed and failed to live up to the standard I expected of myself.") And he vowed to atone. ("I must now dedicate some time to regain the trust of my family.")

He offered no excuses, made no play for sympathy, did not seek to blame some vast right-wing conspiracy for his predicament. One wishes the formerly mighty would leave their wives out of these acts of public contrition, but except for that gratuitous detail, Mr. Spitzer's was a manful exit.

But what is one to make of the reaction to his fall? Oh, the audio-visual sneers on the television talk shows. They who once cheered him now jeer. Then there was the unholy glee on the floor of the New York stock exchange. Trading came to a halt as jubilation broke out. The Schadenfreude was thick as the Sunday tabloids. How they hooted. It was embarrassing to watch.

Somehow the oh-so-measured analysis of the higher class of pundits was even worse. Their subtext seemed to be: What could the man have been thinking? Thank God for not making me like him, for I'm much too smart, too canny, too prudent ever to wind up like him. As if hubris were something safely confined to others, and not inseparable from the human condition.

A little charity might have been too much to hope for, but a little humility would not have been out of order - or at least a little fear of what fate has in store for those who think themselves invincible, and take joy in the downfall of others. Yet these celebrants seemed unable to help themselves. The fate of Eliot Spitzer had taught them nothing.

"The horror for us, as it was for the Greeks, is precisely to see that an Oedipus or a Creon can so easily be ourselves." -Paul Roche, in his Introduction to "The Oedipus Plays of Sophocles"